NEC Pulls The Plug On Storage Integration Business
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on GreenTechMedia.
It doesn’t appear that building grid-scale lithium-ion battery storage is a licence to print money!
And NEC bought the business from a bankrupt company!
Portugal’s Delayed 700MW Solar Tender With Storage Option Launches
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
According to the Wikipedia entry for Solar Power in Portugal, Portugal had 828 MW of installed solar power in 2018.
So 700 MW will almost double the capacity.
Note that if they had the same amount of installed solar power per square mile as the UK, Portugal would have 3 GW or 3,000 MW of installed solar power.
Newcomer Broad Reach Power To Deploy Increasingly Large Battery Systems In Texas
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
This is the introductory paragraph.
US-based independent power producer (IPP) Broad Reach Power has said it will build 15 projects in Texas in 2020, each of them just under 10MW / 10MWh, with construction on six of them set to begin this summer.
The article then goes on to describe the electricity industry in Texas and where the battery storage fits in.
It’s all a far cry from the Texas portrayed in soaps like Dallas.
Wind Power In Texas
Wind Power in Texas has its own Wikipedia entry and this is the first paragraph.
Wind power in Texas consists of over 40 wind farms, which together have a total nameplate capacity of over 28,000 MW (as of 2019). If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world: The installed wind capacity in Texas exceeds installed wind capacity in all countries but China, the United States, Germany and India. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state.
But then everything in Texas, is famed as being the biggest in the world.
Their installed capacity of 28 GW compares with 17.64 GW of installed wind power in the UK.
Solar Power In Texas
Solar Power in Texas also has its own Wikipedia entry and this is the first paragraph.
Solar power in Texas, along with wind power, has the potential to allow Texas to remain an energy-exporting state over the long term. The western portion of the state especially has abundant open land areas, with some of the greatest solar and wind potential in the country. Development activities there are also encouraged by relatively simple permitting and significant available transmission capacity.
The Wikipedia entry also says that in 2019, Texas had 4.32 GW of installed solar power.
By comparison, the UK has 8.1 GW of installed solar power. Who’d have thought that?
As Texas is 2.87 times geographically larger than the UK, if Texas had the same solar panel density as the UK, Texas would have an installed capacity of 23.2 GW.
The Need For Energy Storage In Texas
With all this installed wind and solar energy in Texas and its potential for expansion, there would appear to a massive demand for energy storage in the state.
Conclusion
What would JR think?
Lithium Battery Cell Prices To Almost Halve By 2029
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Lithium-ion cell prices will fall by around 46% between now and 2029, according to new analysis from Guidehouse Insights, reaching US$66.6 per kWh by that time.
The rest of the article contains a lot more useful predictions.
I will add a prediction of my own.
The drop in prices of lithium-ion batteries will surely result in a lot more applications, in the following areas.
- Battery-electric vehicles
- Battery-electric vans and buses and light-trucks.
- Battery-electric trams and trains
- Battery-electric aircraft.
- Battery-electric ships.
- Battery-electric tractors
- Battety-electric construction plant
Lithium-ion batteries will also be used in hydrogen-powered versions of any of the above.
The cost of lithium-ion batteries, will also lead to more applications in the following areas.
- Grid energy storage or as it sometimes called; front-of-the-meter storage.
- Heavy trucks
- Double-deck buses
- Railway locomotives
These could use a very large number of lithium-ion cells.
Conclusion
Because as yet, there is no alternative to lithium-ion cells for mobile applications, I think we’ll see grid-energy storage going to one of the alternatives like Gravitricity, Highview Power or Zinc8.
US Deployed 98MW / 208MWh Of Energy Storage During First Quarter Of 2020
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Research firm Wood Mackenzie has held onto its forecast that the US will deploy around 7GW of energy storage annually by 2025 and found that 97.5MW / 208MWh of storage was installed during the first quarter of this year.
The United States may be led by a President, who doesn’t believe in global warming, but individuals and businesses in the country seem to believe in battery storage and the benefits it brings.
This is an interesting paragraph from the article.
The overall deployments were also down in megawatt-hour terms: 208MWh in total was a 43% decrease quarter-on-quarter and down 34% year-on-year. Wood Mackenzie found that this was due to a majority of front-of-the-meter projects coming online being short duration energy storage. This meant that FTM storage accounted for 13% of Q1 2020 deployments in megawatt-hours but for 22% of the total megawatts deployed.
Front-of-the-meter storage is mainly used to maintain supplies, when demand is going up and down like a yo-yo in an area. Companies like Gresham House Energy Sorage Fund seem to be funding these batteries in the UK. Gravutricity, Highview Power and Zinc8 also seem to be targeting this market.
Conclusion
It would appear that the energy storage market is healthy on both sides of the Atlantic
Norway Announces $384.5m Clean Energy Fund To Aid In Covid-19 Recovery
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Power Technology.
These are the first one-and-a-half paragraphs.
Last week, Norway announced plans to fund a “green transition package”, investing $384.5m into sustainable power and infrastructure to help the country’s economy and productivity post-Covid-19.
The fund will be used to support a range of initiatives, including investments in hydrogen power and battery storage technology, building offshore wind infrastructure, and renovations to new and existing buildings, as Norway looks to reach the Paris Climate Agreement target of limiting global temperature rise to less than two degrees by 2050.
Perhaps we should follow Norway’s lead.
Explaining Gravitricity
Gravitricity is a simple way to store excess electricity, that is perhaps being produced by intermittent renewable resources like wind or solar power.
This is their explanatory video.
It may look simple, but how much energy can a typical system store.
The video says that depths can be between 150 and 1,500 metres and that the weight can be up to 5,000 tonnes.
- A quick calculation using Omni’s Potential Energy Calculator with 500 metres and 500 tonnes gives 681 kWh.
- But build a system in a four kilometre deep gold mine with 5000 tonnes and you could store 54.5 MWh.
- Perhaps, that is extreme, but you can understand why the South Africans are interested in the technology.
- Perhaps, more practically, we have some coal mines in the UK, where the winding shafts are around 800 metres, which with a 1000 tonnes would store 2.2 MWh.
These are practical amounts of power.
Gravitricity And South Africa
This article on ESI Africa is entitled Gravitricity Sets Sights On South Africa To Test Green Energy Tech.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Disused mine shafts in South Africa have been identified as an ideal location to test UK-based energy start-up Gravitricity’s green energy technology.
Remember that mine depths in South Africa are often measured in kilometres rather than metres.
UK’s Largest Solar Park Cleve Hill Granted Development Consent
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Solar Power Portal.
These are the two introductory paragraphs.
Cleve Hill Solar Park, set to be the largest in the UK, has been granted development consent by the energy secretary.
The colossal 350MW project will include 880,000 panels along with battery storage, and sit just one mile northeast of Faversham, in Kent, situated close to the village of Graveney.
Other points from the article.
- Cleeve Hill Solar Park is a £450million project.
- It is the first solar project to be considered a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project.
- It is being developed as a joint venture between Hive Energy and Wirsol.
- It is due to be operational by 2022.
- To complete the project 700 MWh of energy storage will be added later.
The article also contains this quote from Solar Trade Associations chief executive Chris Hewett.
Solar has a significant role to play in boosting the economy in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. With the right policies we can expect to see an 8GW pipeline of solar projects unlocked and rapidly deployed, swiftly creating a wealth of skilled jobs and setting us on the path towards a green recovery.
8 GW of intermittent energy will need a lot of storage.
As Cleeve Hill’s developers are planning to provide 700 MWh of storage for 700 MW of solar panels, it would appear that 8 GW of solar panels could need up to 16 GWh of energy storage.
As our largest energy storage system is the pumped storage Electric Mountain in Snowdonia with a capacity of 9.1 GWh and most of the large solar developments are towards the South of England, the UK needs to develop a lot more energy storage, where the solar is generated and much of the energy is used.
I can see the following environmentally-friendly developments prospering.
- Highview Power‘s CRYOBattery, which uses liquid air to store energy. Systems have a small footprint and up to a GWh could be possible.
- Electrothermal energy storage like this system from Siemens.
- Using electrolysers from companies like ITM Power to convert excess energy into hydrogen for transport, steelmaking and injecting into the gas main.
- Zinc8‘s zinc-air battery could be the outsider, that comes from nowhere.
Developers could opt for conservative decision of lithium-ion batteries, but I don’t like the environmental profile and these batteries should be reserved for portable and mobile applications.
Floatovoltaics
One concept, I came across whilst writing was floatovoltaics.
The best article about the subject was this one on Renewable Energy World, which is entitled Running Out of Precious Land? Floating Solar PV Systems May Be a Solution.
A French company call Ciel et Terre International seem to be leading the development.
Their web site has this video.
Perhaps, some floatovoltaics, should be installed on the large reservoirs in the South of England.
- The Renewable Energy World article says that panels over water can be more efficient due to the cooling effect of the water.
- Would they cut evaporative losses by acting as sunshades?
- As the French are great pecheurs, I suspect that they have the answers if anglers should object.
This Google Map shows the reservoirs to the West of Heathrow.
Note.
- Wraysbury Reservoir has an area of two square kilometres.
- King George VI Reservoir has an area of one-and-a-half square kilometres.
- Using the size and capacity of Owl’s Hatch Solar Farm, it appears that around 65 MW of solar panels can be assembled in a square kilometre.
- All these reservoirs are Sites of Special Scientific Interest because of all the bird life.
- Heathrow is not an airport, that is immune to bird-strikes.
Could floatovoltaics be used to guide birds away from the flightpaths?
Incidentally, I remember a report from Tomorrow’s World, probably from the 1960s, about a porous concrete that had been invented.
- One of the uses would have been to fill reservoirs.
- The capacity of the reservoir would only have been marginally reduced, as the water would be in the voids in the concrete like water in a sponge.
- Soil would be placed at the surface and the land used for growing crops.
I wonder what happened to that idea from fifty years ago!
UK Energy Storage ‘Nears 4GW’
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on ReNews.biz.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Almost 4GW of energy storage capacity is now connected to the UK network with a further 9GW in the planning process, according to a new report released today by the Electricity Storage Network (ESN).
It is a small article, where GW is mentioned nine times.
The Anonymous Widower 